ARTH210: American Art

Unit 3: 1800 to Circa 1860Portrait painting became popular from the time of Protestant
infiltration of the colonies, in a shift from religious art of the
earlier Catholic regime. The spread of photography in the 1840s in turn
diminished demand somewhat. During this period, painter Charles Willson
Peale opened the first museum opened to the public in America. Westward
expansion began in earnest and the nation’s population increases
dramatically. Landscape painting gained stature as well.

3.1 Developments in PortraitureNote: A demand for portraits encouraged many artists with varying
degrees of training to seize opportunities in this genre in the period
between 1800 and 1860. American portraits of the 18th and
early 19th century tend toward a flattened style.
Iconographic details relate to status, occupation, and important events
in the sitters’ lives.

Instructions: The extent to which painters like Sklaver and Johnson
(above) were self-taught, interacted with other artists, and/or
reflected a new “American” style has been taken up by specialists in
the field, as have the roots and boundaries of “folk art,” which has
its own historical narrative that overlaps with the more canonical
art historical one. The webpage above is a good place to start
(browse briefly; for those interested, there are extensive links.)

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displayed on the webpage above.

Instructions: Edward Hicks (1780-1849) is perhaps among America’s
most renowned 19th-century folk artist. Click through
images and descriptions (six). Note the personal aspects of Hicks’
style, and how he uses narratives subjects also shared by
“academic” painters.

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displayed on the webpage above.

3.2 Romantic LandscapeNote: America represented divine wilderness to Europeans. Painters
like Thomas Cole exploited literary and spiritual allusions to create
metaphoric visions of America’s natural wonders. The “Luminists”
focused on pristine, dramatic light and overlapped with the “Hudson
River School.” Landscapes of the West often included images of Native
Americans; some artists specialized in recording their enclaves and
customs in the wake of “Manifest Destiny.”

Instructions: From the main menu (link above), click “Virtual
Exhibitions”; read the introduction and click “Images” to proceed
through an extensive presentation of Catlin's artwork (34
images).

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displayed on the webpage above.

3.3 Painting Everyday LifeNote: American *genre *painting—depictions of ordinary life, as well
as still life “genre” (or “type”)—were visual commentaries on the
diversity of lifestyles emergent in the United States. They could
appear “realistic” but were often composed to convey moral messages,
sometimes based on literary subjects. “History” paintings were
influenced by genre subjects in terms of sentimentality and melodrama.

Instructions: At the top of the page, click the first section,
“Inventing American Stories 1765-1830.” Read the introduction and
view the 13 images/entries. (Please note that images can be
enlarged twice.) Pay special attention to the following entries:
-#3 and #4: Review John Singleton Copley.
-#10: John Lewis Krimmel, The Quilting Frolic, 1813. Note the
exaggerated coloration, ragged clothing, and marginal position of
the black fiddler. Black musicians would become a staple of the
19th-century genre in which some artists specialized, and
which have inspired diverse interpretations of artist intent and the
appeal to the (white) market. Disturbing depictions, which became
stereotypes through repetition and by virtue of a lack of
alternative, naturalistic images of real people of African descent
were influenced by grotesque visages of “black-face” minstrelsy, a
hugely popular entertainment in much of America into the
20th century. Note the young black serving girl, whose
heavily laden serving tray is nearly her size.
-#8 and #11: Charles Willson Peale, Exhumation of the Mastadon,
1805-08, and The Artist in His Museum, 1822. In a new window,
open related supplemental essay from The Academy of Natural Sciences
in Philadelphia.

Return to the exhibition home/index page; click “Stories for the
Public, 1830-1860,” and read the introduction and view the 28
images/entries. Listen to the audio commentaries provided for the
following entries:
-#19, George Caleb Bingham,The County Election, 1851-52.
-#23, Lilly Martin Spencer, Young Husband: First Marketing, 1854
and

Instructions: Raphaelle Peale, a son of Charles Willson Peale
(whose work you observed in "Inventing American Stories 1765-1830"),
was the first acclaimed American still life painter. The meticulous
attention to surface and texture (derived from European, especially
Dutch precedents) would be developed by the end of the century into
amusing “trompe l’oeil” paintings that can almost appear to
incorporate real objects (more in upcoming sections).

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Instructions: Charles Peale experimented directly with “trickery”
in this life-size work of two of his children on a staircase. It
includes a real wooden step coming into the gallery space at the
bottom to enhance the illusionism. Listen to the brief audio clips
on the page.

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displayed on the webpage above.

Instructions: Read through this presentation in three steps: a
close look at the painting, the career of Harnett, and the subject
of money in still life painting; make comparisons with other
artists. While Harnett’s best work is late in the century, it is
the epitome of what became associated with distinctly American
19th-century trompe l’oeil. The detail is hard to
capture on screen; for larger images of works by Harnett, you may
want to enlarge images from the collection of the Metropolitan
Museum of
Art.
Search “Harnett” (any search window) to retrieve enlarged images of
his artwork.

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3.4 History Painting: Emanuel Leutze’s “George Washington Crossing the
Delaware” (1851)Note: Perhaps the most widely recognized and reproduced American
painting in history, and the most frequently copied by other artists and
illustrations (whether in parody, homage, or both), Leutze’s “George
Washington Crossing the Delaware” is traditional for the period in terms
of composition, with the centered hero at its “peak.” It does, however,
evoke a naturalistic sense of the setting and, while still detailed, the
brush strokes are somewhat looser than those in some of the precedents
we have seen; this is not as clear in reduced reproduction as it would
be in a first-hand viewing of the 25-foot-long canvas.

Instructions: Read the introduction (above link), then click the
audio link in order to listen to a 6-minute report about the
painting by art historian Ina Jaffee. (A free media player download
is available).

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displayed on the webpage above.

Activity: The Saylor Foundation’s “American Art Activity 1”
Instructions: Select an original work of American art (see
INTRODUCTION, above) and compose an essay (2-3 typed, double-spaced
pages) from notes taken at a personal viewing. Refer to The Saylor
Foundation’s ARTH210
Worksheet.
Begin with data. Include a careful description of the basic subject
depicted, medium/technique, and formal aspects (as applicable/what
is most prominent in the piece). Then offer a summary of its
potential meanings (iconographic analysis, context in terms of
period, narrative, artist’s biography, etc., as applicable). Draw
on how scholars we have read so far have approached close viewings
of individual works.